


There is No Darkness

by Island_of_Reil



Category: Tamír Trilogy - Lynn Flewelling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bigger On The Inside, Gen, Magic, Quintuple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: Not all Illioran wizards were driven out of Ero.





	There is No Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> [Original](https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/330615.html?thread=1904448119#cmt1904448119).

Stooped, withered, and peahen-drab, the fruit peddler would not have merited even a first glance from a Harrier. But, as Iya glanced warily about the side street she'd just slipped down, the woman’s colorless eyes caught her own by chance.

Iya’s nape prickled. She supposed it was likely that the woman could not afford space along the main thoroughfare to hawk her wares, but it was passing strange to see a shopfront — if the word could be applied to a fruit-laden trestle upon the stoa of an exceedingly tiny and quite ramshackle house — in such an out-of-the-way spot. Yet why would a wizard living so deep within Ero not wear the silver and copper badge? Was she yet another of Niryn’s spies?

As delicately as one might turn out one’s leg in a court-dance, Iya brushed the edge of her mind against the peddler’s. As if on cue, the thin lips tugged upward and parted, exposing stained, crooked teeth. “Fancy some quinces or pears, Mistress? I sell the finest in the Three Lands, a quarter-sester each.”

Iya returned the smile and, with a careful lack of haste, approached the house. “I just might."

She made an earnest show of browsing the pears and quinces. They were round and unblemished, and their combined scent hung deliciously over the trestle, making Iya’s stomach growl. If nothing else, she’d found a bit of luncheon, and the price would be kind on her ever-thin purse.

“I’ve more inside, Mistress, if you’d care to step into my humble home,” the peddler said mildly. Too mildly, no cajole to her words.

Iya wondered how she might have room for so much as a handful of cherries in the house behind her. With a matching mildness, she said, “Indeed, I would.”

The boards of the stoa creaked loudly under her boots. Door and doorframe alike were gouged and splintering, and tatters were all that remained of their last coat of paint, giving them a leprous look. As the peddler ushered Iya in, Iya’s nose twitched. It wasn’t until a few moments later that she consciously realized she’d been anticipating the odors of mold, mildew, week-old cooking, and sweat.

What she smelled was dreaming-herbs.

The interior was not vast, properly speaking, but it was a good tenfold larger than the exterior suggested. Clouds of incense drifted and twined about alabaster pillars and well-cushioned meditation couches, but no seekers lay dreaming upon the latter. Instead there stood half a dozen figures, white-robed and silver-masked, beneath the inexpressive gaze of the Cloud Eye overhead. The magic that bound it all within the physical limits of the house and shielded it from Harrier senses crackled over Iya’s scalp and nape and down her arms right to her fingertips.

“Carry the Light, wizard,” said the peddler behind Iya, all of a summer’s warmth in her voice.

One could say, justifiably, that Erius’s Skala had made a cruel mockery of the rote reply. But Iya spoke it without irony: “There is no darkness.”


End file.
